Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a serious love of peanut butter.  I printed out this recipe from all recipes awhile ago and had a friend leave a few jars of peanut butter behind when he moved out of state I decided to try them out.  The end result was delicious chewy peanut buttery chocolatey goodness.  They were quite the hit at work and gone within the first 2 hours of my shift.  Hope you like them!

Peanut Butter Cookies from Heaven (Makes 3 dozen cookies)
1 C butter
1 1/2 C packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 C peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 1/4 C cornstarch
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together butter and brown sugar.  Beat in eggs, peanut butter, and vanilla.  Mix together flour, cornstarch, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  Combine wet and dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips.  Roll 1 tsp sized balls, place onto ungreased cookie sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper), flatten slightly, and bake for 10 minutes.

Bananas for Banana Bread

I heard about chocolate chip banana bread from a friend and decided try out a recipe because I LOVE bananas and chocolate.  I doubled the recipe and brought half to the concert venue this weekend (it was a hit) and froze the other half to bring into school this week.  This recipe was pretty delicious but I added an extra banana to the recipe because I really love a strong banana flavor and used butter flavored shortening because it's what I already had on hand.  I baked it in metal loaf pans and found they browned VERY quickly so I'd recommend tenting them with foil.  I splurged on a stoneware loaf pan yesterday so I'll be curious to see how that affects the breads that I bake.

Katie's Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (adapted from: All Recipes)

Makes 1 loaf

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 bananas mashed
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl, cream sugar and shortening. Beat in eggs, vanilla and bananas until thoroughly blended. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon into a greased loaf pan and tent with foil. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-70 minutes or until the bread tests done with a wooden pick. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Smells like *team* spirit!

I'm a true believer in not buying anything that I think I can make myself so when I saw a cute headband online for the Colts, I knew I had to make up a Bears version for my football loving sister.  My sister and her hubby are die hard football fans.  He plays for the CPD Enforcers and they have season tickets to the Bears.  So I purchased a few squares of glittery felt (orange, blue, and white), a few plastic headbands, 1 inch glitter foam letters, and rounded up some tacky fabric glue, and my glue gun.

I staggered the letters on the blue felt and added some tacky glue to the letters to ensure they wouldn't fall off during any tailgating festivities. I cut around the letters leaving a 1/8 inch border of blue then glued it to the orange felt and did the same.  After the glue was dried I hot glued the design to a headband that would blend in with my sister's dark brown hair.

The foam letters came in a set with red, blue, gold, and white letters so I made up a matching set for my Notre Dame loving best friend Christine (Memories By Christine) and her daughter.

I got a little inspired and printed out a 4 inch Bears logo on my computer and traced the parts onto the glitter felt, glued them with tacky glue, and attached it to a headband with hot glue.  One of these will also be mailed out to my good friend Megan (Sprinkles of Creativity) this week.

I then had to make one for myself and since I prefer the Cubs I recreated their "bear and bat" logo out of white glitter foam and backed it with left over blue glitter felt.  It was a HUGE pain trying to cut the bear out of the foam but I managed to make two so my friend Sandy could have one to wear when she visits the place of her recent engagement...Wrigley Field!

Have a Coke (cupcake) and smile!

I've made the classic Coke cake before, but when I found out the box office manager at the concert venue where I work in the summers was a Cherry Coke addict I knew I had to try the Coke cake with the cherry version of the soda.  I've tried regular, diet, and vanilla and the cherry version is by far my favorite.  It may sound kind of odd but it makes a delicious, moist, chocolate cupcake with just a hint of Coke flavor.

I followed the recipe below for the cake and the "frosting," baked the cakes in foil cupcake liners, and topped them off with little cola bottle gummy candies.  I put frosting in quotes because it's more of a glaze and can be rather tricky to work with if you don't let it cool enough before trying to use it or wait too long because it sets.

Finished cupcake.  I wish I remembered to take a picture before I took the best looking cupcakes to work.  Oh well. :)

Here's the recipe:

Cupcakes (makes 24 regular cupcakes):

2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups small marshmallows
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup Cherry Coca-Cola
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake tin with liners.

In a bowl, sift sugar and flour. Add marshmallows. In saucepan, mix butter, oil, cocoa, and Coca-Cola. Bring to a boil and pour over dry ingredients; blend well. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk just before adding to batter along with eggs and vanilla extract, mixing well. Pour into a lined cupcake pan.  I use an ice cream scooper to do this because it seems to fill them the exact amount and keeps them pretty uniform in size.  Bake for 20 minutes, remove from oven, let cool, "frost" and top with a cola bottle gummy. 

"Frosting":
1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons cocoa
6 tablespoons Cherry Coca-Cola
2 Cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For frosting, combine butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and pour over confectioners' sugar, blending well. Add vanilla extract and pecans. Spread over cupcakes. Serve with a Coke!

First Ever Blog!!!

So this is it!  Here it is!  My first ever blog!  I've been getting my craft on lately by baking, bejeweling, hot gluing, and in various other medium.  My wonderful college buddy and sorority sister, Megan (Sprinkles of Creativity), suggested I start my own blog to share my craftiness.   Of all the people I've kinda lost touch with post-college years, she's one of the ones I miss the most and I've been very inspired by reading her page and some of the great baking blogs she recommended to me.  I hope my little addition to cyberspace will do the same to the people that read it.

So here it is!  I wanted a clever name that would be easy to remember without giving away any of my personal information like my last name or specific location.  After much deliberation, I named my blog "Don't Forget the Sprinkles" in homage to the amazingly talented Megan and after my absolute favorite baking ingredient...sprinkles!  I looked through my cabinets and found an embarrassing number of sprinkles.  Monochromatic sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, sugar sprinkles, candy sprinkles, snowflake sprinkles, Halloween sprinkles...  Those who know me well will be shocked to discover that despite my large sprinkle collection, I don't have any purple sprinkles at all!  Sprinkles are easily my favorite ingredient because I love how they can take a regular cupcake and make it magical or turn regular ice cream into a sundae.  They're that little bit of magic in every day life that I think we all need.  I hope you find a little bit of magical inspiration here. :)